The amazing synchronicity of the Global Development (the 1300s-1450s). An institutional approach to the globalization of the late Middle Ages

Lucy Badalian and Victor Krivorotov

LSE Research Online Documents on Economics from London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library

Abstract: In a new approach to a long-ranging debate on the causes of the Late Medieval Debasement, we offer an institutional case-study of Russia and the Levant. Avoiding the complexity of the “upstream” financial/minting centres of Western Europe, we consider the effects of debasement “downstream”, in resource-exporting periphery countries. The paper shows the amazing synchronicity of the worldwide appearance of the early modern trading system, associated with capitalism or commercial society. The centre-periphery feedback loop amplified trends and pushed towards economic and institutional changes. This is illustrated via the Hanseatic-Novgorodian and Italian-Levantine trade – under growing market pressure of the exploding transaction costs, the oligopolies gradually dissolved and were replaced by the British-Dutch traders. In this case-study the late-medieval/early-modern monetary integration served as the transitional institutional base for reducing transaction costs during a dramatic global shift. Highlighting centre-periphery links, a new trading outpost of Arkhangelsk rose synchronously with Amsterdam.

JEL-codes: N0 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 40 pages
Date: 2010-04
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ehl:lserod:27906

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